Tag: Landscape

Geometry of Agriculture: Brazil

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On a jet high over central Brazil, the cropped, divided, and cultivated land has a strange organge and purple color to it. Some fields are the broad circles of modern irrigation equipment, while others are odd heptagons nestled next to rivers and streams. From above, the landscape is alien. As an awesome side-note on Brazilian airlines: checking luggage is free and encouraged (so the overhead bins are empty), the airlines serve ham and cheese sandwiches instead of pretzels, and no one speaks a word of English.

Geometry of Agriculture

Grizzly Peak Trail

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Up here in the Berkeley Hills, the entire Bay Area stretches out on a clear day. In the distance is Piedmont and the Oakland Airport, but I particularly engage with the sense of scale that the preposterously-steep fire trail adds to the image. There’s a space for humans in the sprawl of the East Bay.

Grizzly Peak Trail

College of Chemistry

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UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry is truly massive, occupying five interlinked buildings in a massive complex (with tendrils reaching out to half a dozen other buildings.) Even the courtyard at the center of the complex actually functions as the roof for two more floors of subterranean lab and office spaces (including my own.) From an aerial photography context, I suppose you could call this my self-portrait.

College of Chemistry

Berkeley and the Rainy Hills

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True, Eastern-Seaboard-style storms are a rarity in the Bay Area. When the weather obliges, there’s no better place to experience the full brunt of a storm than the Campanile tower. Battered by the wind and enormous raindrops, I mentally thanked engineers for the weatherproof camera body and grabbed this three-exposure HDR shot. Angry clouds dwarf the Eastern edge of Berkeley’s campus. On the left, you can see the College of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In the middle, the Haas School of Business, Strawberry Canyon, and Memorial Stadium. On the right, the College of Environmental Design and the International House. The heavy rain makes every color so much darker and more intense.

Berkeley and the Hills

Big Science Moon

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This was the scene over the Berkeley hills last week, as a massive full moon rose over Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. You could practically hear scientists howling, but I suspect that was more because their experiments weren’t working than because they were werewolves.

Given all of the processing that goes into producing an HDR image, I can’t exactly say that this image “hasn’t been Photoshopped.” When you get right down to it, every single image receives some sort of post-processing, even if it’s just to bump up the contrast. What I can say, however, is that the size of the Moon has not been artificially enhanced. Our celestial cousin really was that gorgeous and enormous on this particular evening.

Big Science Moon

Guest Post: Stockbridge Bowl

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Today’s post comes courtesy of Colin Hill.

This is a shot of Stockbridge Bowl in the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was a relatively warm day, but the lake was still frozen over. I love the details in this picture: the huge cracks forming on the lake’s surface, the snow covered houses nestled into the hillside, the hills rolling off into the distance, all watched by the two tall pines in the foreground.

Stockbridge Bowl

Our Own Gold

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The water practically glows with reflected light. The buildings tower over the scene. The long exposure captures the trails of aircraft in the night sky. San Francisco’s waterfront along the Embarcadero may not have the most enormous and prestigious structures, but nights like this make that irrelevant. The scene makes “enigmatic” and “cyberpunky” into something almost friendly. (Or at least inviting.)

High atop it all is that fascinating golden penthouse structure. The visual similarity to a treasure chest must be more than coincidence.

Our Own Gold

Gold and Green

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Wine country in the fall is a little slice of heaven. The rain had passed, the last of the fogs and cloud were rolling past the distant hills, and the golden vines are drifting into hibernation for the colder season. Perhaps vineyards are the best combination of the sophisticated and the bucolic. If nothing else, the slightly artificial reality of Napa contrasts starkly with the slightly artificial urbanity of Berkeley.

Gold and Green

The Path to Sky Island

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In the summer, the Berkeley fire trails become dry and brown. For years, the best part of wandering along those trails is reaching this little evergreen grove on a hill above the dry grass and dirt. Mist from passing clouds leaves droplets of water throughout it, and for a moment, I imagine that I’m riding an island in that sea of grass.

The Path to Sky Island